


Letters Home

by theboardwalkbody



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 15:22:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10722009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theboardwalkbody/pseuds/theboardwalkbody
Summary: The story of Chuckler and his sweetheart told primarily through the letters they exchanged.





	Letters Home

After several unseasonably warm days the winter seemed to have remembered it was in full swing. The day was dark with heavy cloud cover and a gentle rain was falling. She thought about how if her family had never moved out of New York to Kentucky it would probably be snowing instead. The thought was as bitter as the weather and she tried to push it aside as she hugged her coat to her trying to get additional warmth from it.

As she walked a young man jogged up behind her. His breath noticeable in the cold air. He stopped when he reached her.

“Afternoon, Sweetness,” he said when he was right beside her, slowing his pace to match hers.

She jumped out of her skin, and stopped moving, causing the man to gently bump into her. He reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders to steady her and apologized.

“Sorry, darling. Didn’t mean to scare ya,” he said, smiling from ear to ear.  
“You never do, and yet you always find a way,” she returned his smile when she recovered from her slight scare and realized she was in no danger.

He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her cheek. “Sorry.”  
“It’s alright, I was beginning to think I wouldn’t catch you today,” she said.

Normally he would meet her on campus after her last class and would walk her home before he headed back to work. She wished he would take his lunch breaks to relax a bit instead of running out to see her, but he refused and she appreciated the company anyway. Sometimes he’d get stuck at work, however, and if he wasn’t there outside her class she knew not to wait up. She’d figured this was just one of those times.

“Nah, just had something I needed to do first,” he explained.  
“Do tell,” she said.

If she had been looking up at his face rather than on the path ahead of them she would have seen the soft smile that seemed to always dance along his features fade just a fraction before he recovered it and said, “I’ll tell you later, but I have some good news for you now.”

“Oh?” she asked, curious and slightly anxious.

She wasn’t a fan of surprises and being offered incomplete information. She was what her parents, professors, and doctor called “a worrier”. Lew always made her feel more secure but sometimes it was the little things he said that, while perfectly normal to others, just made her feel uneasy. It was never a matter of her not trusting him, she would trust him with her life, it was just she was always scared that bad news would follow.

“I’m taking you out tonight. I’ve got the night off, and we haven’t really had a proper date in a while, plus I got paid the other day and there’s still some left so you and I are going out!” he rattled.

Two emotions hit her at once. The one emotion she considered her “real” emotion, the one she tried to listen to the most but sometimes struggled to, and the other she considered her “fake” and “illogical” emotion, which sometimes got the best of her decision making. Her real emotion told her she was happy and couldn’t wait to spend the evening with her boyfriend, her illogical emotion was almost panicking at the sudden change in her night’s plans (which were meaningless and consisted of nothing but dinner and a bath to relax) and fear at having no idea what Lew had in mind. What was she supposed to wear, where we’re they going, when would they be back? So many questions from her illogical side made her blind to the delight from the real side.

“Hey – Lillian? Lillybean? Lew to Lill, do you read?” he repeated when he realized she’d gotten lost in her own thoughts. It was an occurrence he was used to and, contrary to her worrying, never minded. Between the two of them he was the optimist and the logical one, he balanced her out and kept her grounded.

Pulling herself out of it when his voice registered in her brain she replied, “yes, I hear you. You’re so damn loud I’m sure everyone in town heard you.” She smiled up at him and his concern was replaced again with his own smile.

“You alright then?” he asked. “We don’t have to do anything crazy, we could stay in or something.”

She appreciated how much he understood her need to just do calming things but he was right, they hadn’t had a proper date in a while. He worked constantly, pulling up to 60 hour weeks, to help his mother afford their house and she had classes nearly every weekday from morning until the early afternoon. For the last couple of weeks they’d only seen each other infrequently and she missed him. Illogical part of her be damned, she wanted to spend time with him.

“No, no – I want to go out, let’s go out,” she said.  
“You sure? I know school’s rough and –,” he started.  
“Lew, I’m sure. Let’s go out tonight,” she repeated.

He was grinning ear to ear.

Lew dropped her off at home, placing a quick good-bye kiss on her lips before bounding down the stairs of her front porch and across the lawn to his house next door. She could hear his “hey, Pop” before his front door shut behind him from her own front porch and she chuckled before opening the door to her own house and heading inside.

Lillian took her bag off and placed it on the hook by the front door, adding her coat over it, and headed to her bedroom. She opened the curtains and looked to see if Lew had done the same. Their windows were across from each other and it was a blessing. On warm nights they could open the windows and talk to each other (or, when their parents were asleep it was an easy way for Lew to sneak out of his house and into hers) and there were far too many nights where if he was home she’d “forget” to close the curtains before changing into her bed clothes. Those nights usually led to having a very flustered boy standing outside her window and begging to come in, something she always happily obliged. Opening her curtains now she was met with her boyfriend grinning at her from his own window, he blew her a kiss when he saw her before leaving to do whatever it is he needed to do. She smiled and her heart swelled with love for the goofball that she got to call her own. She decided to go take a quick shower and start getting ready for whenever Lew decided to have them embark on their date.

**~~**O**~~**

The lights in his bedroom were turned out and no more than five minutes later did she hear a knock on the front door. She heard her father had answered it and the usual “Lewis, good evening, are you here for my daughter?” “Yes, Sir, if I may see her,” exchange took place between them.

“Dad, please,” she said closing the door to her room and coming down the hall to the front door.  
“Come in, Lewis,” her father said.  
“Thank you, Sir, but actually I was hoping to take Lillian to dinner,” he said.  
“Oh!” her father replied. He seemed pleased that she was actually going to go out and do something though he tried to hide it, “well, then, do I need to go over the ground rules?”  
“No, Sir.” Lew replied at the same time Lillian interjected, “Dad!”  
Her father smiled as Lillian grabbed her coat and purse and turned back to Lew, “do remember to be a gentleman.”  
“Always, Sir.” Lew responded as Lillian squeezed passed her father and she and Lew turned to hurry off the porch. He barely heard the front door click shut behind them before he put his arm around her, placing a firm squeeze on her butt before sliding up to rest around her waist.  
“Lew!” she said when she felt the pressure of his hand, “what if he saw that?” He laughed in response. “Some effing gentleman.”  
“Some language for a lady!” he feigned offense.

They both laughed, neither being shy to foul language despite what peers or anyone else said.

He brought her to their favorite diner, ordered her usual favorite meal for her, and as they waited for their meal to arrive he shoved money into the jukebox and selected all her favorite songs much to the annoyance of other patrons who would have liked to be able to pick a song or two for themselves.

After their dinner they walked down the street and had ice cream despite the chill of the winter night. It was nice and warm inside the little ice cream shop and empty except for one clerk who sat in a corner reading a book having no other customers to wait on.

Halfway through their ice cream Lillian felt the mood of their evening shift from enjoyment to something different. She noticed Lew’s smile wasn’t quite there and he seemed to become more fidgety. Something was going on with him, and she figured he was trying to broach the subject but couldn’t quite bring himself to find the right moment.

“What’s going on, Lew?” she asked.  
He put down his cup of ice cream and stared at it quietly for a moment before answering, “I went down to the recruitment office this afternoon and joined the Marines.”

There was no emotion in his voice and he spoke as if he was reciting a line of a book he was being forced to read.

“What?” she nearly choked on the ice cream.

“I’ve got to. I’ve got to do my part! I can’t keep sitting here clerking at the grocery and making hardly anything to show for it! Maybe if we’d never left Chicago things would be different, but this isn’t working out. If I do this, I can afford to make a life for myself after. I’ll have done something!” he explained, his emotion rising.

“Am I not working out?” it wasn’t what she meant to say, but it’s what she said regardless as she put down her own ice cream cup.

“That’s not what I meant. You know I love you, right?” he took her hands, both of them cold from holding their ice creams, and held them gently as he looked at her.

Lillian looked up from their hands on the table and saw over his shoulder that the clerk was faking reading her book and was listening intently to their conversation. She decided to ignore the girl, if she wanted something to talk about with her friends in the morning she supposed she was going to get it.

“I do, but, what do I do without you?” she asked.  
“You keep going to school. You focus on that and you’ll come out the other side with your nursing degree and you’ll be amazing at it. Then, when I come home, we could make a good living for ourselves if you’ll have me,” he said it with such certainty, like he had their entire lives figured out.  
“What if you don’t come back?” the tears formed in her eyes and she wanted to hold them back but she couldn’t.  
“I’m going to,” he said, squeezing her hands. She looked down and was quiet as the tears fell down her cheeks. “Lillian, look at me,” he said, letting go of one of her hands and picking her chin up to look her in the eye. “Lillian, I’m coming back to you.”

“I can’t do this without you,” she cried.

“This” was her nursing program. It was intensive, it was demanding, and the rules seemed to be ever-changing. Just when she thought she’d figured them out they were turned around and she was lost all over again. She spent day after day hiding how much pressure she was under and spent nights crying in Lew’s arms from the stress when she couldn’t suppress it anymore. He was the only one who understood how hard this was for her, and he was the only one who knew how to calm her down and get her ready for the next day. He was her rock and now he was going to be leaving her. She was scared of what would happen to her as well as scared of what would happen to him.

“Yes you can,” he insisted. “You can do this. You’ll be alright.”  
“What about you? Please, Lew, you can’t go. I can’t have anything happen to you,” she said as if she could have his name erased from the enlistment forms.  
“You know what’s going to happen?” he asked.  
She shook her head, yes, “we’re both going to die.” Ever the pessimist, her.

  
He chuckled despite the severity of her statement. He knew it wasn’t her talking but the worrying side of her. He knew she only half believed herself. “No, you’re going to become the best nurse in the country, I’m going to defend the country and then take out every enemy that comes my way and then the war will be over by the end of the week! Then I’ll come back home and you and I will be one hell of an unstoppable duo. We won’t have to break our backs working and we can go somewhere nice, just the two of us.”

A weak smile pulled at her lips.

He smiled at her, “I saw that.”  
Her smile widened, “ever the optimist, you.”  
“Someone’s gotta be,” he said and wiped the tears from her cheeks with his hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here before Suizie over there gets an idea to write her own book.” He motioned his head over to the corner where the clerk was sat, still listening, and Lillian looked up to meet the girl’s eyes for a second before she pulled her book back up over her face trying to pretend nothing happened.

**~~**O**~~**

Lew and Lillian walked home in relative silence with their bodies as close to each other as they could manage and still walk properly. When they got to the front door of Lillian’s house Lew intended to drop her off and let her get a good night’s sleep. He knew the news he had shared with her wasn’t the easiest to handle and he felt guilty, but he also felt it was exactly what he needed to be doing. He knew she would understand once she stopped worrying.

Lillian wasn’t so ready to let him go, yet, however.

“You have work tomorrow morning?” she asked.  
“Actually, I’m thinking of quitting. Then I can spend the rest of the month with you before I have to leave,” he explained.  
“Can you afford that?” she asked.  
He shrugged, “they’re going to have to get by without me soon enough.”  
“When do you think you’ll tell your boss?” she questioned.  
“Don’t know yet,” he said.  
“Sleep on it?” she asked.  
“mhm,” was his response.

She looked around at the windows for a moment and saw they were dark. Dark windows meant her parents were sleeping.

“Come inside,” she said, gently pulling him toward the door.  
“Yeah?” he asked.  
“I’m stressed out,” she confessed, “and I can’t stop thinking horrible things.”  
“You’re always stressed out,” he shook his head.  
“You know the best ways to distract me though. To take my mind off things,” she bit her lip. It wasn’t a lie. He was certainly good enough that all she could focus on during their nights together was how their bodies felt when they were entwined.  
“Oh!” he said when he caught on.  
“Come in, Lew,” she said again, this time pushing the door open and heading inside.  
“Yes, Ma’am,” he smiled.


End file.
